Page:Poems, now first collected, Stedman, 1897.djvu/27

THE HAND OF LINCOLN The love that cast an aureole

Round one who, longer to endure,

Called mirth to ease his ceaseless dole,

Yet kept his nobler purpose sure.

Lo, as I gaze, the statured man,

Built up from yon large hand, appears

A type that Nature wills to plan

But once in all a people's years.

What better than this voiceless cast

To tell of such a one as he,

Since through its living semblance passed

The thought that bade a race be free!

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